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How did we get from here…

Explore the transformative counterculture movement of the 1960s, from mainstream cultural values to the pursuit of personal freedom, through aspects such as music, sexual liberation, political activism, and more.

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How did we get from here…

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  1. How did we get from here…

  2. To here… • ….In just 10 years?

  3. Mainstream Culture Values • Patriotism: My country, right or wrong! • Traditional Family: Get married (at young age), have babies, husband works, wife stays home. Heterosexual • American Dream: Work hard, stay in the same firm, and you can have a good life • Conformity: toe the line, behavior, jobs • Don’t question authority: gov’t, church, parents, teachers, police

  4. 1960s Counterculture • Building off the nonconformists of the 1950s, the counterculture stressed: • Spontaneity • Alternative lifestyles • Pursuit of personal freedom • Rebellion against conformity and materialism • *A call to action against racism, injustice, war, inequality, and corporate values • * Only some members of the counterculture; many were not really political

  5. Sex

  6. Drugs

  7. Rock ‘n Roll

  8. Common Aspects of the Counterculture Communal Living • Haight-Ashbury District (S.F.) and Greenwich Village (NYC) • Rural Communes (drop out of mainstream America) People disillusioned with society, they wanted to escape it, not work from within to improve it. Drug Use • Marijuana (common) • Hallucinogens (LSD, Mescaline, Peyote)--Timothy Leary • Heroin (use grows as Vietnam War grows) Ecology, Environmental movement Nonconformist clothing and hair

  9. “Fifteen of us lived together, one room per family, and a kitchen and a communal room. I can't say that I enjoyed that kind of living. It always seemed that women ended up doing a lot more chores than the men. The men played music, smoked the herb, chopped wood and repaired vehicles. The lack of privacy was a test.” Lisa Law https://americanhistory.si.edu/lisalaw/1.htm

  10. Common Aspects of the Counterculture New Music • Fusion of blues, jazz, and electronic instruments leads songs with gritty, “shocking” lyrics. Songs are no longer just about love, but about social ills, psychedelic and abstract images, and drugs. • “Acid or psychedelic rock” that also incorporates “international” sounds: starts largely on the West Coast: The Grateful Dead, Quicksilver Messenger Service, Jimi Hendricks. Often in a “jam” mode. Songs can go on for 20-25 minutes. Played on FM stations Sexual Liberation/Revolution • “Free love” and rejection of traditional sexual relationships and gender stereotypes (birth control, particularly the Birth Control pill plays a huge role in this); abortion becomes a major issue (1973 Roe v. Wade) supreme Court Decision. • There was a lot of mainstream opposition to this, but ironically it may be one of the more lasting legacies of the 1960s

  11. New Music • Fusion of blues, jazz, and electronic instruments leads songs with gritty, “shocking” lyrics. Songs are no longer just about love, but about social ills, real life, abstract images, and drugs. • “Acid or psychedelic rock” that also incorporates “international” sounds: starts largely on the West Coast: The Grateful Dead, Quicksilver Messenger Service, Jimi Hendricks. Often in a “jam” mode. Songs can run for 20-25 minutes. In live performances they are in jam mode and the same song sounds very different from performance to performance. Played on FM stations. AM Stations played “Top 40 Countdown.” Sexual Liberation/Revolution • “Free love” and rejection of traditional sexual relationships and gender stereotypes (birth control, particularly birth control pill plays a huge role in this); abortion becomes a major issue (1973 Roe v. Wade) supreme Court Decision. • There was a lot of mainstream opposition to this, but ironically it may be one of the more lasting legacies of the 1960s

  12. Veins of the Counterculture-Timothy Leary “Turn On, Tune In, Drop Out” LSD guru Timothy Leary

  13. "Turn on" meant go within to activate your neural and genetic equipment. Become sensitive to the many and various levels of consciousness and the specific triggers that engage them. Drugs were one way to accomplish this end. "Tune in" meant interact harmoniously with the world around you – externalize, materialize, express your new internal perspectives. "Drop out" suggested an active, selective, graceful process of detachment from involuntary or unconscious commitments. "Drop Out" meant self-reliance, a discovery of one's singularity, a commitment to mobility, choice, and change. Unhappily my explanations of this sequence of personal development were often misinterpreted to mean "Get stoned and abandon all constructive activity".

  14. Political Activism • Focused on protests • Feminism, anti-racist, anti-corporate, anti imperialist, civil rights, environment • Not all political activists embraced the counterculture lifestyle—many were actually critical of it.

  15. Underground Press

  16. Hope to Rage • As the Vietnam War drags on and the shock of assassinations of Martin Luther King and Robert Kennedy set in, a darker side of the counterculture emerges. 1968-1969 marks a shift in the counterculture from the 1967 “Summer of Love: in San Francisco to something darker. • More militant tactics in the anti-war movement • Use of “harder” drugs-heroin—increases • Rise of cults in communal living. Predators and others seep into the culture.

  17. Eve of Destruction (1965) • https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I98KeKV_F9g

  18. The British Invasion:The Beatles, The Who, The Rolling Stones • I Wanna Hold Your Hand • https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jenWdylTtzs • A Day in the Life • https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=usNsCeOV4GM

  19. The Rolling Stones

  20. Diana Ross and the Supremes/ Paul Butterfield Blues Band

  21. The Grateful Dead

  22. The Dead’s Lyrics were, well, abstract Dark Star Grateful Dead Dark star crashes, pouring its light into ashes.Reason tatters, the forces tear loose from the axis.Searchlight casting for faults in the clouds of delusion.Shall we go, you and I while we can Through the transitive nightfall of diamonds?Mirror shatters in formless reflections of matter.Glass hand dissolving to ice petal flowers revolving.Lady in velvet recedes in the nights of goodbye. Shall we go, you and I while we canThrough the transitive nightfall of diamonds?

  23. Album covers were SUPER important

  24. Townes Van Zandt 1944-1997 • Never recorded on a major label • "Townes Van Zandt is the best songwriter in the whole world and I'll stand on Bob Dylan's coffee table in my cowboy boots and say that." The quirky quote, which embarrasses Steve Earle still today, seemed like something that came straight from the mouth of Van Zandt, rather than an overzealous Earle. And it did not make Van Zandt happy, considering how much he hated the concept of celebrity. • He partially defused the situation by saying, "I've met Bob Dylan's bodyguards, and if Steve Earle thinks he can stand on Bob Dylan's coffee table, he's sadly mistaken." 

  25. Woodstock August 1969 While mainstream media was focusing on the terror of the Manson Murders to argue they were right all along about the counterculture, the counterculture managed to pull off the iconic Woodstock Music Festival in upstate New York. As many as a half-million people (mostly youths) attended the three-day festival. Lots of drugs, traffic jams, lack of facilities, and aimless youth but no violence Crosby, Stills, Nash, & Younghttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HKdsRWhyH30 Jimi Hendrickshttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MwIymq0iTsw Country Joe: Fixin’ to Die Rag https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3W7-ngmO_p8

  26. Santana • Carlos Santana talks about Woodstockhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ojQMTkAYnqY • Santana @ Woodstock: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AqZceAQSJvc

  27. Four months later: the anti-Woodstock: Altamont • A major concert held in December 1969 at Altamont Speedway marred by extreme drug use and violence • Hell’s Angels, a motorcycle gang, was hired to perform security. • The event was so ugly that The Grateful Dead, one of its main organizers, would not take the stage to play. • For many, it soured them on the 1960s counterculture • https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0qTKsylrpsg • “This moment and the Manson murders are about the time where the peace and love generation came crumbling down - we had experienced the highs of the drug scene and now the horrors of it began unfolding - reality.”

  28. Legacies of 10,000 Day WarAmerican Phase • Drug use: US military estimated in 1971 that 10-15% of soldiers were using heroin.

  29. Symbol of the Dark Side-Charles Manson • This dark side was epitomized in the summer of 1969 when the Charles Manson family committed a series of grisly murders in the southern California. • The murders received huge media attention and became associated in many people’s minds with communal living and the excesses of the “alternative” lifestyle.

  30. Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring

  31. https://kcts9.pbslearningmedia.org/resource/aml15.sci.env.earthday/the-environmental-movement-and-the-first-earth-day/?#.Wvp6BogvzIVhttps://kcts9.pbslearningmedia.org/resource/aml15.sci.env.earthday/the-environmental-movement-and-the-first-earth-day/?#.Wvp6BogvzIV • http://www.pbs.org/wnet/americanmasters/a-fierce-green-fire-timeline-of-environmental-movement/2988/

  32. Earth Day and the Environmental Movement • https://www.earthday.org/about/the-history-of-earth-day/

  33. https://kcts9.pbslearningmedia.org/resource/aml15.sci.env.earthday/the-environmental-movement-and-the-first-earth-day/?#.Wvp6BogvzIVhttps://kcts9.pbslearningmedia.org/resource/aml15.sci.env.earthday/the-environmental-movement-and-the-first-earth-day/?#.Wvp6BogvzIV • http://www.pbs.org/wnet/americanmasters/a-fierce-green-fire-timeline-of-environmental-movement/2988/

  34. Gay Rights in the 1970s • https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2014/02/a-glimpse-into-1970s-gay-activism/284077/ • https://www.seattle.gov/cityarchives/exhibits-and-education/digital-document-libraries/gay-rights-in-the-1970s

  35. Mixed Legacy Positive Negative Drug Use Irresponsibility Questioning of authority • 26 Amendment • Activist mentality • Increased voice to youth • Innovative music • Questioning of authority • Environmental awareness

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